Ethical Conflicts for Firms in China

By

Jason Dean

Updated Jan. 13, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

BEIJING -- Google Inc.'s stunning announcement that it might withdraw from China follows its long struggle with the ethical implications of doing business here, an endeavor which has forced it to make painful concessions to its public embrace of freedom of information.

Google entered the China market relatively late. If began offering a Chinese-language version of its search site in 2000, but didn't open offices in China until...